Bush budget takes money from women and children to fund war and tax cuts, Ms. reveals

In the new issue of Ms. magazine - now on newsstands - Money editor Martha Burk reveals how women will get another nasty Valentine this year from President George W. Bush: an annual budget request that cuts a wide range of programs affecting mostly women and redistributes that money to tax cuts and spending that mostly benefit men.

As the Bush budget slashes funding for education, childcare, health research, Medicaid, food stamps and job training - vital programs that benefit women - Burk says it's time we place the budget under tough scrutiny with a new type of analysis known as gender budgeting. Employed in the U.K. and other parts of the world, gender budgeting evaluates national budgets for gender fairness, looking at how apparently gender-neutral models and policy-making tools may actually have an implicit gender bias.

For instance, Burk takes a hard look at the war in Iraq , which provides huge government contracts to male-dominated companies and creates jobs almost exclusively for men. Burk points out exactly what those war monies could buy: For example, just one day of the war could buy health care for 423,529 kids, or homes for 6,500 families. And for the cost of just 3 hours and 34 minutes of the war, the U.S. could annually fund the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which provides food for expectant mothers, babies and the elderly poor.